Hot new liberal theory: Memories Pizza orchestrated this fiasco because they wanted the online donations

It adds up. ABC57 reporter Alyssa Marino walks through the door of the pizzeria during a Category Five news-storm over RFRA and asks, “Anyone here got a problem with catering gay weddings?” The pizzeria employees slink away, knowing what a “yes” would mean for their careers. But not Memories CEO Crystal O’Connor. As usual, she’s one step ahead of the game. Instantly she recognizes that if she says yes to Marino, the left will go apesh*t, flooding her business with crank calls, death threats, and nasty online reviews. The business will close temporarily. And then enraged conservatives will rally to her side, showering her with solidarity cash beyond her wildest small-town dreams. The GoFundMe take as I write this: $528,000 and counting. It’s a scam, engineered by an unassuming but quietly brilliant pizza-shop owner whose ability to anticipate partisan strikes and counterstrikes really should have her in charge of a Fortune 500 PR company. Coming soon: The Barbara Walters interview and then a bestselling book. She’ll retire by 40. Watch the clip below and you’ll see what I mean. No one as slick and comfortable on camera as O’Connor is could have possibly stumbled innocently into this culture-war clusterfark. She’s the “Gone Girl” of religious liberty.

Or, alternate theory: The more excitable members of the left’s gay-marriage mob can’t cope with how this Two Minutes Hate for O’Connor and her business played out. So, as conspiracy theorists are wont to do, they’re reaching for an explanation that makes them feel better about it. What I can’t figure out is whether it’s malice or actually some vestigial pangs of remorse about the mob atmosphere that are driving the conspiracy. Maybe they’re angry that the family hasn’t been utterly ruined for their thoughtcrime — or maybe on some level they think, but can’t bring themselves to admit, that people shouldn’t be ruined for politely dissenting from the new norm on gay marriage. If O’Connor is some grifter mastermind who engineered this debacle for the money then there’s really no need to feel bad about the abuse she’s taken. She wanted it. She’s making bank off it. The left did her a big favor. In fact, I ran across three examples on Twitter in the past 24 hours of liberals insisting that some or all of the abuse O’Connor and her business have taken is actually the handiwork of homophobic right-wing mobys eager to drum up sympathy for her. The Truther theory is of a piece with that. At some point today, rest assured, O’Connor herself will be accused of trolling her own Yelp page.

Nah. They’re just bummed that she hasn’t been ruined. Cheer up, though: Per Rick Wilson, eventually some extra-virtuous SJW somewhere will end up shooting a gay-marriage opponent in the face for his sins. If you think the current Trutherism is zesty, wait ’til you see what it looks like after that.